


it's fine, it's okay. (i'll die anyway.)

by coldairballoons



Category: Edgar Allan Poe's Murder Mystery Dinner Party (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Killer AU, M/M, Murderer H.G. Wells
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:54:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26841736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coldairballoons/pseuds/coldairballoons
Summary: HG Wells: Inventor, author, scientist, esteemed creator of time travel.And murderer.
Relationships: Ernest Hemingway/H. G. Wells
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	it's fine, it's okay. (i'll die anyway.)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BeansHandgun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeansHandgun/gifts).



> Title is from "i'll die anyway" by girl in red. 
> 
> Surprisingly, though, I listen to Sweater Weather.

There was a knife on the counter. 

There was a knife on the counter at Edgar Allan Poe's mansion. 

And around the knife, a sickly dark red pool of blood was slowly drying against the countertop. Did people always bleed this much? HG supposed not, but... it did the trick, in the end. A well-placed stab to the chest. An eye socket. A sliced Achilles tendon to immobilize the target, then a nice clean cut to the throat. Simple, really, how quickly a human life could end.

That wasn’t his main priority, though. At the moment, the one thing he had left to focus on was standing in the doorway, brandishing a knife of his own with his back facing the inventor. A switchblade, HG rolled his eyes at the thought. A switchblade could slit a boar’s throat, but to take down the “murderer”, who was “still in the house and at large”, well, Mr. Hemingway would need more than a switchblade.

He raised a hand to tap his shoulder, putting back on that feigned innocence that Ernest had let his guard down for. And, perhaps… fallen for. After all, what other reason would he have for instantly turning around, face pale, panicked. “Are you alright?”

HG put on his best display of weakness, despite the clear distinction of power in the room. There was no way Hemingway could get to anything (worthwhile) that would hurt him, and the worst he could do with that pathetic excuse for a knife was a jab to the chest. Actually, HG thought, as he shook his head, he was sure even that would shatter the poor thing.

Poor thing, HG thought, looking up at him. Poor, poor thing. He wouldn’t know what hit him, not all alone in the kitchen like this. Because Hemingway  _ trusted _ him, which, to be frank, was quite foolish. 

And yet, it was foolishness that put both of them in these places. The scientist and inventor turned murderer by a slip of the tongue by one Eddie Dantes, and the drunk asshole who never failed to make something deep in HG’s conscience flicker. 

But HG had no time to be foolish, not now. Not as he looked up at the other man with the biggest, most terrified eyes he could muster, and Hemingway’s face softened, and he pulled him into a hug. The inventor’s face was smushed up against Ernest’s shoulder, but he didn’t mind. In fact, it was the closest to “safe” he’d felt since the beginning of this horrible night.

Maybe he didn’t have to die. HG could see the ransom note, the look on Dantes’ face as he told him that he couldn’t do it. That he couldn’t kill, not another man who deserved to live, who had done nothing wrong, nothing to deserve death.

But all of that worry melted away as Ernest started to run his fingers through HG’s hair, talking softly to him. “I’ll get you out, H. I’ll keep you safe.” He murmured, and for a moment, HG let himself believe it. Let himself believe that someday, somehow, he could escape this life he owed, the debt he needed to pay.

“How can you be sure?” HG whispered back in a scratchy, low voice, that probably sounded thick with tears. In fact, that wasn’t acting, wasn’t feigned innocence at all. “What… what if something happens to you?”

He felt Ernest tense up, breathing shakier than before, and his arms around the inventor tightened. And for a moment, HG was terrified of scaring him, before he responded softly, a quiet joke to mask his clear panic. “Did I stutter, Wells? I’m getting you out of here.”

“Ernest, you don’t mean--” No, no, no, he couldn’t  _ kill _ him. That wasn’t what he meant. “You need to get… I need you to be safe as well, you stupid... self-sacrificing… bastard…” He paused, and looked up at Ernest, and he was crying.

And just like that, HG was crumbling, all of his guard was let down, he was falling to the floor and sobbing, shaking. The guilt was pressing down on his chest and his lungs and his shoulders and his throat and he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t get a breath in, because _he was the reason this was happening_ , and if Ernest thought he wouldn’t make it out, maybe neither would HG, because he couldn’t stand the thought of killing him.

“...H?” HG felt a hand on his shoulder, before someone, his someone, his Ernest, Ernest was pulling him into a hug and tucking HG’s face against his shoulder, pulling him into his lap and in the back of his mind, HG was laughing, because Ernest’s fragile masculinity had already been shambles since he became friends with the inventor, but now? Sitting on the floor of Edgar Allan Poe’s kitchen, holding another man in his lap?

That was the funniest thing HG had ever thought of, which clearly was not where his mind should have been at the moment. And despite his sobbing, he hiccuped out a laugh, and Ernest laughed a little bit, and then the two of them were laughing together through tears, HG’s head not leaving the crook of the other man’s neck.

“...Jesus Christ.” Ernest whispered, in something halfway between a chuckle and a broken sob. “Jesus  _ Christ _ , H, what the hell are we doing?”

“I…” He giggled a little bit, sniffling. “I don’t quite know.” And it was true, he didn’t. In fact, he didn’t know anything anymore. How he would get out of this damned house alive, with Ernest at his side. How he would survive the night, live to see the sunrise.    
  


And once again, those thoughts melted away as Ernest leaned against him, and HG could feel his heart beating against his cheek. He was alive, he was safe. And after a moment, he was feeling that same heartbeat on his lips, because Ernest had pulled him into a kiss, desperate, as though he’d waited for an eternity to hold him like this. HG was smiling against his lips, because finally, finally, something was going right.

Then, there was the gunshot, and he felt a wet, sticky substance at his side, and his vision was blurring, but whether that was with tears or his own vision he didn’t know, but Ernest was lowering him to the ground, pressing on his side with one of the rags from the kitchen. 

How long had it been, a year? An hour? A few seconds? HG couldn’t tell, all he could tell was that he was drowning. He was drowning inside his own head.

“...Ernest?” HG whispered, and a bit of blood dribbled out from between his lips, and he was coughing, and then he was being held, and something was dripping onto his face, tears, tears, because Ernest was holding onto him and rocking him slightly, and telling him it would be okay.

But it wouldn’t. The inventor raised a blood-stained hand up to cup Ernest’s cheek, smiling weakly. “It’s okay.” He kept repeating. “It’s okay. It’s okay, love.” A lie, they both knew it, but it was better to stew in a false truth than to accept it.

And as HG Wells died, he whispered out one final truth, one he realized mere moments before, as he laid there, cradled in another man’s lap.

“I love you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Specifically to my Ernie: I'm so sorry, this hurt me to write. Please forgive me, and also you're pretty and I love you, you know who you are.
> 
> Anyways, school has started up once more and let me just say it is kicking my ASS. I've been trying to write more, so hopefully I'll have more out during this month, as soon as this production I'm in completes the filming process. Also! If you have requests, please shoot me a message on Tumblr (coldairballoons), leave a comment here, or DM my Discord (coldairballoons#9556). I actually would love to start taking requests again, so please don't be shy and *grabby hands* gib idea thamk


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